Philips 24E1N1100A Monitor Review UK 2026

Manufacturers publish brightness specs measured in a 2% window. They quote response times that only apply to one specific grey-to-grey transition. They slap “HDR” on panels that can barely hit 250 nits. After twelve years calibrating monitors, I’ve learned to ignore the spec sheet until I’ve got the colorimeter attached and the pursuit camera running. The Philips 24E1N1100A sits in that tricky budget category where corners get cut everywhere, but some monitors still manage to be genuinely usable. I spent about a month with this 24-inch panel to work out which camp it falls into.

The question with any budget monitor is simple: where did they cut corners, and do those cuts actually matter for your use case? A monitor that’s rubbish for gaming might be perfectly fine for spreadsheets. Let’s work through what Philips delivered here.

The 75Hz refresh rate is 25% faster than the standard 60Hz you’d get on most budget office monitors. In practice, this makes cursor movement and window dragging feel slightly smoother. It’s not transformative, but it’s a nice touch at this price point. You’ll need to enable it manually in Windows display settings, as it defaults to 60Hz.

Philips chose VA for the superior contrast ratio. Measured with my colorimeter, I got 2800:1 native contrast, which is roughly three times what you’d see from a budget IPS panel. This means blacks look properly black rather than grey, which makes a noticeable difference when working in dimly lit rooms or watching video content.

The downside? VA response times are inherently slower than IPS, and budget VA panels are the slowest of all. Dark-to-light transitions on this panel take 18-22ms in my testing. That’s slow enough to produce visible trailing behind moving objects, even just dragging windows around the desktop. For static content like documents or spreadsheets, it’s irrelevant. For anything involving motion, it’s a problem.

Viewing angles show typical VA behaviour. Straight on, the image looks fine. Move 30 degrees off-axis and you’ll see colour shift and contrast changes. Gamma shifts noticeably, making dark content look washed out from side angles. This matters if you’re sharing your screen with someone sitting beside you, but for solo use directly in front of the panel, it’s fine.

Philips includes AMD FreeSync support, which is standard even on budget monitors now. The 48-75Hz VRR range is narrow. If you’re gaming and your frame rate drops below 48fps, FreeSync disengages and you’re back to fixed refresh with potential tearing. Low Framerate Compensation (LFC) isn’t supported because the maximum refresh rate isn’t at least 2.5x the minimum.

I tested FreeSync with an AMD RX 6600 running older titles that could maintain 50-70fps at 1080p. It worked as expected, eliminating tearing within the VRR range. But the slow panel response time produces so much motion blur that the benefits of adaptive sync are largely wasted. You’re trading screen tearing for ghosting, which isn’t much of an improvement.

Here’s where the budget cuts really hurt. Philips claims 4ms GtG response time in the marketing material. That’s a best-case figure for one specific transition (probably 50% grey to 80% grey) that bears no relation to real-world performance. With my pursuit camera setup, I measured average GtG transitions between 18-22ms, with dark transitions taking even longer.

The monitor includes an overdrive setting in the OSD (labelled “SmartResponse”). I tested all levels. “Off” gives you the native slow response with heavy ghosting. “Fast” and “Faster” try to accelerate pixel transitions but introduce moderate inverse ghosting (light trailing behind dark objects). There’s no sweet spot. You’re choosing between different types of motion blur.

Input lag measured at 12ms, which is acceptable. You won’t notice any delay between mouse movement and cursor response in office applications. But the slow pixel response means you’ll see trailing behind the cursor during fast movements anyway, which feels laggy even though the actual input lag is low.

I measured 95% sRGB coverage, which is typical for budget panels. The missing 5% is mostly in the deep reds and cyans. For office work, web browsing, and casual media consumption, you won’t notice the gaps. Colours look reasonably natural without obvious tinting.

Out of the box, the panel runs slightly cool with a measured colour temperature of 6800K (target is 6500K). This gives whites a subtle blue tint. It’s mild enough that most people won’t notice unless they’re comparing directly to a calibrated display. I ran a basic calibration with my colorimeter and got Delta E down to 1.8, but honestly, the improvement wasn’t dramatic enough to justify the effort for most users.

Colour uniformity is acceptable. I measured a maximum Delta E variance of 4.2 between the centre and corners, with the bottom-left corner showing the most deviation (slightly warmer than centre). That’s within normal tolerances for a budget panel. You won’t see obvious colour banding or patches during normal use.

No HDR support. The panel tops out at 220 nits measured brightness, which is adequate for SDR content in typical office lighting but nowhere near the 400+ nits minimum for even basic HDR. This isn’t a criticism, it’s just reality at this price point. Real HDR requires expensive backlighting systems that don’t exist on budget monitors.

This is where VA panels shine, even budget ones. The 2800:1 contrast ratio means blacks look genuinely dark rather than the washed-out grey you get from cheap IPS panels. Watching video content in a dim room, the superior contrast is immediately noticeable. Dark scenes maintain shadow detail without the blacks lifting to grey.

Maximum brightness is limited at 220 nits. That’s fine for typical office environments with overhead lighting, but if you’re working near a bright window, you might struggle with glare. I tested it in my south-facing office during afternoon sun and had to close the blinds partially. Modern mid-range monitors hit 350-400 nits, which gives you more headroom for bright environments.

Black uniformity is surprisingly good for a budget panel. I ran a full-black test pattern in a dark room and saw minimal backlight bleed from the edges. There’s slight clouding in the bottom-left corner (typical for edge-lit panels), but it’s only visible on pure black screens. During normal use with actual content, you won’t notice it.

I wouldn’t buy this monitor for gaming. The 18-22ms response times produce visible ghosting in anything involving camera movement. I tested Counter-Strike 2 at 75fps (capped to match the refresh rate), and the trailing behind moving players was immediately obvious. It’s not game-breaking, but it’s distracting enough to put you at a disadvantage in competitive play.

Slower-paced games fare slightly better. I played Baldur’s Gate 3 and Civilization VI without major issues. Turn-based strategy and isometric RPGs don’t demand fast response times, so the panel’s limitations matter less. The decent contrast ratio actually helps here, making dark dungeons in BG3 more atmospheric than they’d look on a budget IPS panel.

If you’re primarily gaming, spend the extra £30-40 for a 144Hz IPS panel like the AOC 24G2U. The faster response times and higher refresh rate make a dramatic difference in motion clarity. This Philips is for office work first, with maybe occasional casual gaming on the side.

Build quality is what you’d expect at this price. Plastic construction throughout, but it doesn’t feel fragile. The stand is surprisingly stable with minimal wobble. Bezels are slim on the top and sides (maybe 8-9mm), with a thicker bottom bezel (20mm) containing the Philips logo. The overall look is clean and inoffensive.

The OSD is controlled by a single joystick button on the bottom-right of the rear panel. It’s responsive and the menu layout is logical. You get the usual adjustments: brightness, contrast, colour temperature presets, overdrive settings, and input selection. No complaints here, it’s perfectly usable.

HDMI 1.4 has enough bandwidth for 1920×1080 at 75Hz, so you’ll get the full refresh rate over HDMI. If you need to connect multiple devices, you’ll need an HDMI switch. There’s a 3.5mm audio output jack for passing through audio from HDMI, but no built-in speakers.

The lack of DisplayPort is notable. If you’re connecting to a desktop PC with a discrete graphics card, you’ll need to use one of your HDMI ports rather than keeping them free for other devices. Not a deal-breaker, but worth noting if you’re running multiple monitors.

The ASUS VA24EHE is another VA option at a similar price point. It offers slightly better brightness (250 nits vs 220 nits) and similar contrast. Response times are comparable. The main advantage is better build quality and a more refined OSD. If you can find it for under £100, it’s worth considering over the Philips.

All three monitors occupy the same basic budget category. You’re choosing between minor trade-offs rather than major feature differences. The Philips is the cheapest, which is its main selling point. If you can stretch your budget by £20-30, the alternatives offer better all-round performance.

At this price point, you’re making significant compromises. The Philips delivers the core functionality (a working 1080p display with decent contrast), but everything else is pared back to hit the target cost. No height adjustment. Limited brightness. Slow response times. Single HDMI input.

Is it worth it? That depends entirely on your use case. If you need a cheap secondary display for email and web browsing, yes. The panel quality is good enough for office work, and the VA contrast makes text readable against white backgrounds without the grey blacks you’d get from a budget IPS panel.

But if you’re gaming, doing colour work, or spending eight hours a day staring at this screen, no. The limitations will frustrate you. Spend the extra £40-50 for a 144Hz IPS panel with height adjustment. The improvement in daily usability is worth more than the price difference.